17 February 2018

I am happy to announce that with the help of eyebo and Smoke from ManiaPlanet, that I've been able to tweak our TeamFNG_Royal mode to officially still be like old school ShootMania Beta 2!

When a player steps onto an underground block, the mode will auto-switch the weapon to the Nucleus weapon again, and back to whatever the player had originally when entering the underground block after exiting. It's a little different than before. In the screenshot below, the weapon will switch before you're actually in the tunnel, because you're detected as underground before you actually make it into the tunnel... so it switches a little earlier on some blocks, but feels exactly the same on others. Some above-ground tunnels don't switch still either, so it's not QUITE there, but it's very close.; and still super fun.

Look out snipers in "JumpStart"...you are safe no more.

For those that love the way ShootMania was at its origins, come play with us "old school" in our server!

15 February 2018

Check out the Ubisoft Chinese New Year sale featuring all TrackMania titles at 70% off!
EDIT: The sale is also on Steam! (To filter non-maniaplanet games try this link - but it won't include TrackMania 2 Canyon, so you'll need to go to the other link for that.)

ShootMania Storm is also on sale... $6.79 on Steam

TrackMania 2 (ManiaPlanet) - DOES NOT require UPlay!

Canyon: $6.00 ($5.99 on Steam)

Stadium: $3.00 ($2.99 on Steam)

Valley: $6.00 ($5.99 on Steam)

Lagoon: $6.00 ($5.99 on Steam)!!!

TrackMania Turbo (REQUIRES UPlay): $12.00

There is a catch... you will have to purchase on UPlay and install/launch it the first time from there (unless they have a way of providing your game key through the UPlay UI now...) Once launched, login with your normal ManiaPlanet account so the title can be tied to your ManiaPlanet account. After that you can log in to the standalone ManiaPlanet application and enjoy the title there.

Calling all Friday Night Gamers to complete your collection! We're still trying to put together at 20th WANniversary TrackMania tournament that will cover all TrackMania titles through history (TrackMania United Forever and TrackMania 2 [ManiaPlanet]). We will be able to pull this off using only two servers, but we'll need all who wish to participate to complete their collection!!!

20 May 2017

I as able to get the TrackMania 2 Canyon and Stadium servers back online today, without XAseco2 (which means no records and map jukebox for now.)

Also, I had to recompute maps so there are limited sets of maps on each server for now. We'll add more back as we go along.

My goal now is to revive the Valley server and get prepped for Lagoon next week. After Lagoon is released and I have a standalone server for it, I will revive the TM2 Title Pack server as well (which will allow us to play all 4 TM2 environments on the same server.)

After all that is complete, I will assess which Server Controllers have caught up with the ManiaPlanet 4 (MP4) updates and see which might be the best to run on our servers.

Some of the slight tweaks in the Stadium and Canyon physics take a little bit of getting used to, but I'm finding most of the older maps that I tested on our servers are as easy, and potentially easier to drive than before. None of them became unplayable after the MP4 changes.

19 May 2017

The new ManiaPlanet 4 updates are pretty awesome, but extensive. This means maps for our servers must be recomputed and I haven't had time to do so yet, with the exception of ShootMania. I have 12 maps recomputed and working with our new TeamFNG_Royal script that works on the Royal title pack now.

We have officially moved the mode over to the Royal ladder/title pack and are still a 90k server. The script needs a few kinks worked out (like getting our emblem back on the pole and spawn points) - and I still need to test to be sure the laser is one-hit eliminations. We also need to figure out a way to get nukes auto-switched in the tunnels again (they disabled that in MP4). I may forego fixing that depending on the feedback we get from the players on our server.

Our TrackMania servers will be down until I get a chance to start recomputing some maps -- since we keep a lot of nostalgia tracks, I'm certain I will be the one needing to recompute them. I'll also pull more down from ManiaExchange AS we get the server spun back up. It might be a couple of weeks to get the old ones going again.

I will also be spinning up a Lagoon server, and we will have the TM2 Title Pack server (which will host all 4 environments in one) after next week when Lagoon is released.

I'm excited to see if we can get some maps made for our Royal server that have TrackMania cars in them too. If you make one, please let us know so we can share it on our server!

And get amped... the ManiaPlanet 4 update has a bundle of awesome new things available for map and mod makers, including wallriding for ShootMania (see "Power Paths"), TrackMania cars in (can be weaponized depending on the mod), turrets, shields and new weapons in ShootMania. It is packed with all kinds of goodness.

Another exciting thing for Team FNG is that I've figured out how to get our TeamFNG_Royal mode to actually run under the Royal title pack where it belongs now. I'm pretty excited to see how that goes.

One bummer is that they've disabled the default switching to nucleus weapon in ShootMania when you are in a tunnel. That will make some of our classic maps not as fun, but we'll see if we can figure out how to get our TeamFNG_Royal mode to still honor that mechanic. Might take some time, but we'll try to keep that "Pre-Beta2" classic mode we've always had on our server.

I'm looking forward to other fun things awaiting us in the new ManiaPlanet.

You will notice some slight changes in physics and handling in the existing TrackMania 2 cars, but I think you'll enjoy it.

01 September 2016

Fans of the Friday Night Gamer's "Royal (old school)" server on ShootMania will be pleased to hear that we have obtained permission from Nadeo (according to the rules for Royal dedicated servers) to bump our server up from a 60k to a 90k.

More points points with your pew pew

The reason I waited so long is because we run a special script that makes our server play by the pre-Beta 2 ruleset (where the storm comes in closer to the pole and lasers are a one-hit elimination.) We enjoy those rules better than the rules post-Beta 2. Also, we have classic maps that we don't ever want to get rid of (like JumpStart, CliffJumpers, etc.) that were built around the old rules, and break somewhat if played on servers with the new.

Be mindful that this will only affect your score on the Storm ladder, not the Royal title pack ladder. Because we run a custom script, we are required to run on the Storm title pack. This is another reason I held off on trying to go more than 60k on our server. The rules are a little different when not doing Royal and I didn't think our server qualified. I'm grateful today to say that we do qualify and have bumped the points limit on our server to 90k.

02 January 2016

Talking tonight with Thundr about a new gaming desktop he'd put together, we got on the topic of Intel's Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) technology. If you follow the link, you'll see one video game screenshot at the top of the article ... and one only (the rest of the photos are of gamers.)

Of all the video games chosen to be represented for this article about gaming RAM, guess which one was chosen?! That's right, one of the best gaming franchises ever made... TrackMania!

This mega-awesome screenshot of TrackMania 2: Canyon was a fantastic choice for the Intel site; and one I use as a desktop wallpaper.

I really wish this game was more marketed in North America. It is so awesome and many North Americans still don't know about it. Yes, it's on Steam, but it's rarely highlighted except for once or twice a year when it's on sale on Steam. Unfortunately it usually goes on sale when more well-known titles are also on sale. We had one time when a surge of 10,000 new North American players came to TrackMania 2: Stadium when it was on sale for $1.99. I hope we'll see more of that so we can get more North American TrackManiacs!

Anyway, back to the XMP story... I run TrackMania on a machine with XMP RAM and it runs as fast as I drive in TrackMania. If you're using XMP RAM in an Intel motherboard, make sure to set the XMP profile in your motherboard's BIOS so you can take advantage of this great technology.

15 June 2015

Nadeo and Ubisoft revealed today at E3 TrackMania Turbo, a $19.99 title that looks to be comprised of all TrackMania 2 environments enhanced (Canyon, Stadium and Valley), and features a brand new environment called Lagoon Rollercoaster!

Lagoon Rollercoaster
The new environment forTrackMania Turbo

If we are honored to be a part of an alpha or beta, we will DEFINITELY be playing this for our traditional Turkey Bowl LAN party in November... if not, we'll have to play it after when it is released on 27 Nov 2015!

I will be contacting Nadeo to get more information, especially to find out if the platforms will all be able to play together and to see if Turbo will be a title pack available through ManiaPlanet or only through the Uplay store. (It better be standalone through ManiaPlanet!!!)